The invention relates to apparatus for supporting and transporting garments, and more particularly to improvements in apparatus for manipulating and transporting garment hangers with and without garments. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus wherein one or more holders for garment hangers are movable along a predetermined path to receive hangers, to facilitate the application of garments (such as pullovers, shirts, blouses, jackets, dresses and/or others) over hangers, and to be relieved of hangers and of garments on the hangers.
Garment making and garment cleaning or washing industries employ apparatus of the type wherein one or more holders, each of which resembles the upper portion of a human torso, are mounted on a conveyor and are transported past several stations at one of which successive holders receive garment hangers from a downwardly sloping ramp. The means for transferring hangers from the ramp into recesses or pockets of the oncoming holders includes tongs having an opening for the hook of a hanger. When the opening receives a hook, the tongs close and a push rod delivers the tongs and the suspended hanger to a position above the recess of a holder. A mechanism opens the tongs in a position in which the thus released hanger descends into the recess of the holder. The push rod then retracts the tongs in order to provide room for manual application of a garment over the hanger in the recess of the holder at the hanger receiving station. In the next step, the hanger (which carries a garment) is engaged by an arm which lifts the hanger and the garment so that the hanger is removed from the recess of the holder and can be transferred onto a rod, rail or bar for transport to the next processing station. As a rule, the holders are rotatable about vertical axes. This enables the operator, who has completed the application of a garment over a hanger in the recess of a holder, to inspect the front and rear sides of the garment for the presence of defects.
A drawback of the just described apparatus is that the operator is idle during insertion of a hanger into the recess of a holder preparatory to the application of a garment over the hanger in the holder and during removal of a garment-carrying hanger from the holder. The same holds true for the mechanism which inserts hangers into the recesses of successive holders and for the mechanism which withdraws hangers (with garments thereon) from the recesses of the holders, i.e., such mechanisms are idle while the operator is in the process of applying a garment over the hanger in the recess of a holder and of thereupon turning the holder about a vertical axis in order to complete an inspection of the front and rear sides of the applied garment. Therefore, the output of such apparatus is rather low. Moreover, a careless operator is likely to be injured if she or he attempts to apply a garment while the respective holder is in the process of receiving an empty hanger or if the operator continues to manipulate the garment when the hanger removing mechanism is operative to remove a garment-carrying hanger from the respective holder. It has been found that the aforementioned arm of the hanger removing mechanism is particularly likely to injure an attendant if the attendant continues to slip a garment over a hanger in the recess of a holder while the arm of the hanger withdrawing mechanism descends toward the head of the operator. A further drawback of conventional apparatus is that the holder or holders of hangers must be exchanged if the apparatus is to be converted from the manipulation and transport of a first type or size of garments to the transport and manipulation of garments of a different type or of garments having a different size.